Diabetes is a massive global problem, affecting more than 420 million people worldwide. It results in several complications, including cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death globally, and diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of global blindness. The damage is especially apparent in low-resource regions, where diabetes is often not noticed and treated adequately.
A large cause of this inadequacy is the high cost, processing time, and difficulty of these tests. More frequent monitoring will lead to improved ability to recognize and treat problems before they are irreversible. As well, diabetes and its complications are tracked independently, when in reality continuous, integrated tracking of diabetes and its complications across multiple systems will greatly improve the patient situation in low-resource regions. To solve this, we developed and are working on deploying DOC Tracker to create low-cost, continuous, convenient, and non-invasive monitoring of diabetes and its complications on a global scale to allow early intervention before irreversible damage. DOC Tracker focuses on specific complications, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and cardiovascular disease, to monitor diabetes across multiple systems, along with tracking of the overall progression of diabetes. |